Perhaps you could better reply at User_talk:HooperBandP#Citation Needed, a conversation started after I removed the Main Page link here to their new fork, following what you guys have been doing on other wikis. I don't want to argue for what others are doing. {{SUBST:User:HooperBandP/sig}} 23:36, December 24, 2010 (UTC)

Hi, what we've said is that the main page should not link directly to the new wiki, that any notice should make clear that there is also the option of staying on this wiki, and that over time the notice should be replaced by more up-to-date news or an adoption notice. The notices have varied a bit, depending on the wiki's individual situation -- if the fork is civil and calm then we are less likely to worry about a notice for a while than if there are active problems.

In general, those choosing to leave can't also control the wiki they are leaving, and at some point the wiki needs to be allowed the chance to recover. That will mean removing "we've forked" notices and allowing the wiki to be adopted by a new editing group. A successful revival won't always happen of course, but the chance should be there. I'm OK with the current notice staying for a while, but I'd like to see it move towards being more about the remaining wiki (and, if necessary, its adoption) sometime in the New Year -- Sannse(help forum | blog) 00:03, December 29, 2010 (UTC)

Deletion = vandalism?

You've said in discussions elsewhere that mass deletion of pages that we have contributed will be considered vandalism and will be reverted. This makes me suspect that you don't quite understand the unusual function of this wiki. The purpose of this wiki, in all three of its incarnations, has been twofold: one, to host freely-distributed but inalterable reference material regarding D&D, and two, to give authors of D&D material a place to put works which remain theirs and are fully credited to them. For the latter, it is necessary that authors be given full control over what is indeed their intellectual property, and our policy has been exactly that (barring failure to fill the criteria for a complete article, in which case it is adopted and a second author's name is attached, or it is deleted). Even when someone wishes to adopt an incomplete article, the author has the opportunity to complete it and keep it entirely theirs. The level of the control we give to the author can be seen in the "editing" field on the author template, where authors can at any time put conditions as to when, by whom, and for what reasons it can be edited.

Under a new administration, however, there is nobody to enforce these rules, since they were made by our administration and thus leave with our administration. That being the case, our articles — which were posted on the wiki under the promise that they would be protected from alteration and would retain our names, as I described above — are put in jeopardy of being changed or re-claimed. They cannot be regarded as reference articles with no owner; they are creative works which must be kept as they are (beyond changes in formatting, etc.), and the departure of the administration which promised that means that it is entirely reasonable to remove the articles for fear that the new administration will not extend the same protection and to make it clear that the contents are the property of the author, not the wiki itself.

That said, since I did not ever attach any conditions for duplication (aside from the automatic copyright that occurs when something is put down in a permanent medium), this wiki is absolutely free to once more include them, but they would need to be included as protected copies, as the SRD is. Personally, I do not feel comfortable leaving their protection to the custody of people I do not know and get a repeat of the catastrophe that led to us forking onto Wikia in the first place, so I would prefer to delete them without being erroneously labelled a vandal. --DanielDraco 02:03, February 17, 2011 (UTC)

All content was added to this wiki under the open CC-by-sa license, that's clearly stated on every edit page. That means it is available for this wiki to continue to display it, whether the original authors have moved on or not. There may be social rules on top of that, but the fundimental licensing allows continued use and future editing.

What this comes down to is that you cannot leave a wiki and control it's future. If you choose to go, that's your right. But you cannot also dictate the content or future of the wiki that you have left.

With that in mind, I'll be removing the menu link to a competitive wiki, and making any other changes necessary to allow this wiki the possibility of future adoption. -- sannse(help forum | blog) 22:54, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

Due to the nature of these articles, they must be considered completed works, (usually) with single authors — which is entirely allowable in the CC-BY-SA. So at the very least I'd like to be sure that, if someone meddles with my work and turns it into an Adaptation as per the license, the author template is altered to say so.

That said, your evaluation of this as controlling the future of the wiki is entirely erroneous. As it stands, I am still an admin of the wiki, and the old bureaucrats are still the current bureaucrats. I doubt those bureaucrats would object to me removing my content, as they never have objected to such things before — we have always given authors control over whether their work is included in the wiki. I am only taking part in shaping the present of the wiki, which is entirely within my rights. --DanielDraco 23:20, February 22, 2011 (UTC)

As per my discussion with Radaghast over here, the incoming admin seems to prefer the deletion of homebrew material if the author has forked (though I think it only necessary on author request). So if you wanted to leave DD, the new admin would not object at all to you removing your pages before you go. If you elect not to remove your material and the remaining community doesn't want to deal with maintaining page integrity in the same way we wanted to, the author template will be altered or simply disabled to reflect the new social rules here, which he seems basically on board with as well. - TarkisFlux 17:20, February 24, 2011 (UTC)

Yep, with Radaghast adopting, this is in his hands :) -- sannse(help forum | blog) 17:55, February 24, 2011 (UTC)